Frenchmen and Brandenburgers
Forbidding and grey, shell-marked and shattered and battered out of all
recognition, yet of such a substantial nature that even the high
explosives and the ponderous shells dropped upon it by the German
gunners could not entirely demolish it, the fort of Douaumont stood up,
cold and black, on that morning of Friday, the 25th February, seeming
even to overshadow the trench, or the apology for a trench--for here,
too, shells had done their work--in which Henri and his friend were
lying. Out beyond them the shell-marked ground, across which flakes of
snow were drifting, descended abruptly to the plain of the Woevre; and
struggling up its slopes came, at that moment, the 5th Division of the
3rd Brandenburg Corps--a corps retired from the fighting-ranks months
ago, specially fed, specially trained and armed, and prepared
particularly for this Verdun fighting. Its 6th Division was, at the
moment, invisible, for it was creeping up the ravine of La Voche, which
sheltered it from the fire of the French defenders.
There is no need for us to repeat the tale of terrific fighting, of the
stubbornness and gallantry of the Germans, and of the heroic resistance
of that thin band of French _poilus_ who still held the main outposts
of the Verdun salient. Let us but say that they had been driven in
four miles from the northern posts they had held, and on the east had
been forced to fall back via Bezonvaux. But those positions had been
but flimsily held, but indifferently fortified, when compared with the
main defensive positions arranged by our allies. They were back upon
that main defensive line now, where it swept from Vacherauville, on the
River Meuse, opposite the Mort Homme and Hill 304, across the hill of
Talou and Pepper Hill--ominous names already to the enemy--past
Louvemont, and so to Douaumont and Damloup, where the trenches had now
descended to the plain of the Woevre, and they held to it till they
clambered once more up the slopes, and so to the other end of the base
of the salient.
Checked on their right, where the 5th Division was advancing, the
Brandenburgers were swept from the face of the earth by a tempest of
shot and shell; but their 6th Division, advancing up the ravine in
front of the shattered fortress, finally burst from cover, and,
supported by a torrent of projectiles from the German guns, hurled
itself from a close point upon the French defences, and, in spite of
the heroic resistance of these soldiers, forced them back.
It was at that particular period that Henri and Jules and a dozen or
more of their comrades found themselves in a portion of the fire-trench
cut off from their comrades, who had retreated, and already almost
surrounded by Germans.
"It's all up! We are surrounded! We are captured! Vive la France!"
shouted one of their number; while others looked about them, at first
doubtfully, and then with grim resignation.
"Yes, captured! Better lie down in the trench till we are discovered,
or else those Huns will fire into us," counselled another of the men.
"And give in like that!" shouted Jules indignantly. "Give in without
trying to crawl back to our people?"
"Crawl back!" a corporal answered him hotly. "As if we shouldn't do
that if it were possible. Look for yourself, man; you've eyes in your
head. See the lines of Brandenburgers between us and our people!"
As a matter of fact, just at the moment when he was pointing to a thick
though somewhat scattered line of grey-coated infantry which had now
swept on beyond them, a gust of wind came whirling round the corner of
the shattered fortress, singing and whistling over the summit, and
bringing with it heavier flakes of snow which obliterated the scene
about them and made vision almost impossible.
"Well, then!" added the heated Corporal. "Even snow won't help us; for
we don't belong to the Flying Corps, and can't, therefore, very well
ascend and drop beyond them."
"But----" exclaimed Henri, who had been using his wits and his eyes all
this time, and, though bound to feel somewhat helpless, seeing the
position in which he and his comrades found themselves, was yet not
quite resigned to the idea of becoming a prisoner. ("Not much!" he
told himself. "I've had some!--as they say in America. Ruhleben was a
lesson which has taught me that the lot of a prisoner is hardly
inviting.") "But----" he called out.
"But----" shouted the Corporal back at him, standing quite close to
Henri, and bellowing in his ear; for, indeed, the little fellow was
very excited. "But you would like to call us cowards next, because we
will not charge after the Germans."
"One moment," Henri said, patting him on the shoulder, "one little
moment, mon cher ami! Neither you nor I wish to be prisoners, eh?"
"Vraiment!" the little fellow answered, a trifle mollified, his anger
oozing out at the tips of his fingers. "But then---- Ah! It is
Henri, eh? I did not recognize you earlier. Then what do you advise,
Henri--you, who have tasted prison life in Germany?"
"Yes, yes! Let Henri tell us," called a number of the others; for
already our hero had won no small reputation amongst his fellows.
Let us advance the story just a little and explain that already that
officer to whom Henri and Jules had given a report of their
reconnaissance had urged upon his colonel that they should be promoted
instantly, and even then, as the conflict raged about Fort Douaumont,
their names were in Regimental Orders. They were to be
"non-commissioned" officers.
"What then?" the little Corporal asked again, eagerly peering up at
Henri, for he was some inches shorter.
"I believe you, my dear fellow," exclaimed Henri. "Not being a bird,
or, as you rightly observed, not belonging to the Flying Corps, we
cannot very well get back to our fellows, that is, not yet. But--and
that is just where you chipped in and prevented my saying what was in
my mind--but we fellows might manage to hold out if we had some sort of
decent cover."
"Aye! Cover--that's it! Out here we should be shot to rags,"
exclaimed a veteran. "Now, Henri, let's have your decision, and
quickly, too, for the snow may stop at any moment."
"Then here it is: take up every cartridge you can find--boxes of
ammunition if you can hit on them--get as much food from the haversacks
of the killed as you can carry, and then let's creep towards the fort.
There's a gateway on this side, for I noticed it in the early hours of
the morning. Let's get behind those concrete and stone walls and
search for a spot where we can hold out and stand a siege till our
fellows counter-attack and relieve us."
The veteran _poilu_ of the party smote his hands together and tilted
his steel helmet backward.
"Mon Dieu," he cried, "but that is it! Our Henri has thought of a
splendid thing for us. Ecoutez! Then I will tell you, I who have been
of the Verdun garrison, not only during this war, but in peace times, I
who helped to remove the big guns when the Kaiser showed us that guns
behind a fort were no longer useful. There are caverns underneath that
masonry, my boys, big galleries, and fortified chambers, to which even
a big shell will hardly descend. Yes, there are rooms down below in
the bowels of the earth which will shelter us, and hundreds beside us.
It is a magnificent plan. I, who know the place, can lead you; and, of
a truth, we will find a spot where men such as we are, fighting for
France, can hold up a hundred of the enemy. Be busy, then! Pick up
cartridges, seek for food and water."
"Yes--and water!" shouted Jules, darting from the trench and stooping
over the nearest figure. All about them were the battered trenches of
that thin force of noble Frenchmen who had fought hand to hand with the
Brandenburgers. There were the bodies of the slain--of friend and
foe--lying in every sort of posture, some half in and half out of the
trenches; some, alas! unrecognizable, for such is the effect of high
explosives; and others, yet again, almost buried already by upheavals
of earth as shells burst close beside them. There were not a few
wounded, too, who lay waiting the succour which might come some hours
hence, and which, it was quite possible, might never come, for in a
little while, no doubt, French fire would command the ground on which
they lay, and neither troops nor hospital bearers could cross it.
Very eagerly, then, for every one of the men in Henri's party was
anxious to escape capture, and eager to rejoin the French forces and
again fight the Germans, the _poilus_ scrambled about in the battered
trench, or closely adjacent to it, taking up cartridges, despoiling the
dead of their haversacks, from which they ejected all but the food
contents, while every man loaded himself with as many water-bottles as
he could conveniently carry.
"It's still snowing hard," said Henri, when some ten minutes had passed
and the band was again collected. "Don't let us get into a flurry, or
spoil our chances by being too hurried. Let's number off, and see how
many we are."
"One! Two! Three!"----
Without a word of command the man on the left started, and Henri, at
the far end of the line, announced his own number. It was twenty.
"Good!" he told them. "More than I thought. Twenty resolute men
fighting for France, for la belle France, my comrades----"
"Ah! For la belle France, for home, for victory!" the veteran shouted.
"Yes, for victory. And listen, my friends; we may help towards it,"
Henri told them. "Resolute men, if they can reach some strong position
in that fort, may well assist our friends battling farther back on the
plateau. Well, now, there are twenty of us, and I see that there are
half a dozen or more ammunition-boxes."
"Ten," the veteran corrected him instantly; "ten, Monsieur Henri"--it
had come to "Monsieur" now, such was the veteran's opinion of our hero.
"Good! Ten boxes of cartridges is it? Ten thousand rounds. Now let's
see to the water-bottles. How many are there?"
The men, on returning to the spot where Henri stood, had at once
deposited their finds at the bottom of the trench, so that there was no
difficulty in making an inventory; and now a mere glance discovered the
fact that there were more than two water-bottles per man, all filled,
as Henri was assured, and all big ones.
"One bottle will last a careful man, say, two days, eh?" he asked.
"In the dungeons of the fort, three days, Monsieur Henri," the veteran
replied; "and, besides, it's bitterly cold weather, when a man does not
need to drink so much."
"And food? Well, we must guess at that; but it appears from the number
of haversacks, and from the way in which some of them are bulging, that
there will be sufficient for some days."
"One mo'!" called Jules at that instant. "Each man's got his rifle and
bayonet, that's understood; there's ammunition, say, for a four-days'
fight, and water and food also. Why not a machine-gun? Here's one
abandoned by our fellows when they were forced backward."
Some of the men almost burst into a cheer, while two of them dashed
forward, and, dismantling the gun, shouldered the tripod and the barrel.
"Good idea!" Henri told him. "The difficulty, though, will be to carry
in sufficient ammunition. But listen to this, you fellows; let's make
tracks for the fort at once, decide upon a spot to hold, and deposit
our belongings; then, if the snow continues and the Germans keep away,
we'll creep out again and look for further ammunition."
They began to move off along the trench at once, the veteran and Henri
leading, and Jules and the stout little corporal bringing up the rear.
Staggering along, loaded with ammunition and water and food which they
had collected, bending as low as possible and holding to the trench so
long as it continued, the little band were soon directly under the
walls of the fort, and though they peered anxiously about them, looking
for the enemy, whose shouts, indeed, they could hear in all
directions--even from the fort itself--yet not once did one of the
Kaiser's soldiers approach them, while all the time the snow fell
silently upon the fort and its surroundings. Then the gate seemed
suddenly to open in front of them, and marching in--staggering in,
indeed, for they were very heavily laden--they followed the veteran
into a shattered courtyard, and from it down a flight of steps to a
gallery beneath--a wide gallery with earth roof and cemented floor,
along which ran steel rails. Indeed, there was a trolley on those
rails, over which Henri stumbled.
"A trolley to run the ammunition round to the guns," the veteran
exclaimed, "but useless now, my Henri, quite useless," he chuckled.
"For, you see, the guns are behind the fort, and have already sent some
of their shells into the enemy."
"That being so, this trolley will do to carry our produce. Pile your
ammunition here. That's it. Those ammunition-boxes will weigh less
heavily on you when stacked on this trolley. Now, my friend, which
way? We are in a deep gallery which seems to be lighted by tunnels
running to the outside. Do we turn left or right, or whither?"
The veteran turned to his right without a word, while Henri and one of
the men followed, pushing the trolley. Following the gallery, which
ran straight on for some fifty yards, they came to a point where the
inside walls had been rounded, and the rail swept in a gentle curve
round the corner and into the extension of the gallery.
"Halt!" shouted the veteran suddenly. "This is the spot that I have
aimed for. Now look! On our left is a wide opening which enters the
hall in which the garrison could take their meals and sleep, and which
can accommodate, perhaps, at a squeeze, a thousand of them. Right
opposite this entrance there is a stairway, and at its top another
room--one of a series of gun emplacements now empty. It will do for
us, my Henri, I believe. Let us ascend."
Taking up the ammunition-boxes at once, and leaving the trolley at the
foot of the stairs, the party scrambled upwards till they found
themselves in a square chamber lit by an embrasure in the wall, through
which the wintry rays percolated. Standing just at the entrance, and
turning round, Henri discovered that, thanks to the height of the
opening into the big hall beneath the fort, he was able to look
directly into it, though the far end was hidden from view by the
stonework at the top. A swift glance round the chamber which they had
reached showed him thick masonry all about, steel beams above, and iron
rails of circular pattern on the floor, on which the guns had been wont
to revolve.
"Well, then?" asked the veteran.
"It will do," Henri told him. "But what we shall want is someone to
discover something with which to barricade the top of these stairs.
Let us divide ourselves into three parties. Jules, you will command
one, our friend the corporal another, and this bearded chum of ours the
third. Now, listen."
"Yes, listen to him, to our Henri," cried the veteran. "For it's
agreed, is it not, my comrades, that he shall command us?"
"Certainly!" they all shouted.
"Then, here is the plan: our bearded friend stays here and sends a
portion of his command about the place to discover sacks of grain,
blocks of stone or of timber, anything, in fact, which will allow us to
build a wall across the top of the stairs. Jules and his men will
descend the stairs and hunt round the fort, while our corporal and his
party will retrace their footsteps, pushing the trolley with them, and
will bring in to us as much food and as much small-arm ammunition as
they can find, and then boxes of ammunition for our machine-gun."
The band of resolute _poilus_, whose eyes were now sparkling with
excitement, for but a little while before they had resigned themselves
to capture by the enemy, now separated, each man bustling about; while
the veteran amongst them, Jules, and the corporal, snapped out orders,
barked them, indeed, and sent their willing men flying. As for Henri,
he went hither and thither, first watching one lot of men and then
another; and, as they worked, as the veteran and his men sought for
obstacles, and by lucky chance found them--for it happened that the
French had stored sacks of grain for their transport animals in one of
the chambers--while Jules and his men reconnoitred their surroundings,
and the corporal, moving very swiftly and with intelligence, returned
more than once laden with supplies from outside, the snow-flakes still
whirled about the place, still enveloped the fort of Douaumont, to
obtain which the Germans had now spent so many lives--spent the lives
of their men indeed like water--and which they now almost surrounded.
Shells shrieked overhead, sent from those guns long since embedded in
concrete, down under shelter of the evergreen fir-trees surrounding the
salient of Verdun, while other shells, smaller missiles, shrieked and
exploded as they hurled their way hither and thither, cast at random
now, for the thick weather made shooting almost impossible. There
came, too, through that embrasure, or through the gateway of the fort,
every now and again, the rattle of rifles, the sharp tap-tap of
machine-guns, and the snap and bark of the soixante-quinze as the
French sent their curtain-fire out beyond the plateau. There was
fighting still to the left and to the right of the fort, in the
neighbourhood of Thiaumont farm and the village of Douaumont, while to
the right, towards Vaux, the flash of weapons was sometimes visible.
More than that, voices could be heard near at hand, the shouts of
Frenchmen somewhere, either in the fort or closely adjacent to it, and
presently the calls, the loud commands, of Germans.
It was, indeed, only half an hour later, when, thanks to the time given
to them, Henri's little command had stacked the chamber with an ample
supply of food and water, and procured such quantities of ammunition
that they might fire it almost all day long and yet have sufficient for
a week, that a terrific explosion shook the fortress, a huge German
shell having burst almost within it. The far wall of that hall into
which Henri had looked, and which faced the bottom of the stairs giving
access to their chamber, fell in with a crash and clatter, the
semi-darkness existing there being made denser at once by the dust and
debris shot out by the explosion. Then figures raced across the hall,
the figures of Frenchmen, coming from some point beyond, where Jules
and his party had failed to discover them, while, quickly following
them, could be seen German infantry--men of the Brandenburg Corps.
"Up here, up here!" shouted Henri, dashing down the stairs at once, and
calling to the men running towards him. "Here are friends; come up the
stairs and join us."
In rapid succession those men dashed through the opening of the hall,
leapt up the stairs three at a time, and were dragged over the parapet
which the veteran _poilu_ had had erected. Then Henri retreated
slowly, and, having rejoined his friends, sat down, rifle in hand, to
see what would happen.
"Tell me," he asked one of the men who had just joined their ranks, and
who was gasping for breath near him, "what has happened?"
"What has happened? Ah! They have driven our folks back from the
fort, which is now isolated. We were holding on--I and perhaps a
hundred of my comrades--near the eastern end, and then the Germans,
having blasted the corner of the fort to pieces with that last shot,
charged from some trenches in which they were lying, within a hundred
metres perhaps, and burst their way into the place. We could not hold
on any longer. It was a case of flight, or death, or capture."
"And so you chose flight! Good!" said Henri. "We chose the same.
Here we are, snug in this place, with plenty of ammunition, and ready
and eager to continue fighting. If any of you men understand a
machine-gun, get to the one we have, at once, and man it; the rest, who
have no rifles, can assist in any way that appeals to them. Ah! Watch
those fellows. They are streaming into the hall. There are
fifty--more--perhaps a hundred of them."
There were indeed considerably more of the Brandenburgers to be seen
when the dust from that shattered wall had subsided. They came
streaming in to the darkened hall, dishevelled, their _Pickelhaubes_
gone in many cases, their rifles missing, their grey clothing now a
mass of caked mud, and their hands and faces of the same colour.
Shouting and bellowing their triumph, they massed in the room till an
officer made himself apparent.
"Those men? Those Frenchmen who passed before us?" he asked in the
arrogant manner of the Prussian; "you killed them--eh?"
"No! They went on ahead of us, up those stairs yonder," one of the men
answered.
"Then no doubt they are cut off, like rats in a trap. Go in and kill
them."
Henri turned and whispered to his friends.
"You heard that?" he asked them. "But perhaps you do not speak German.
Then I will translate; they say they have us here like rats in a trap,
and the order has been passed to come and kill us. Well, personally, I
have a great objection to being killed, and I have every wish indeed to
kill our enemies. Get ready! Load! Two hundred Germans shan't turn
us out of these quarters."